True, a stupid test is not ideal, but I never see any evidence of that in these discussions. I’m not saying that some standardized tests are not stupid, but if the test is stupid you fix the test, you don’t get rid of it.
Did you read the entire thread?
We just did the middle of the year PARCC test less than a month ago, and the end of the year PARCC test is next week. What on earth is this going to tell us? What can we expect the students to have learned in less than one month? What value does this provide except to Pearson’s bottom line? If this doesn’t fit the description of a stupid test, then would would?
It really seems like those that don’t understand the pushback against all of the standardized testing (we are not talking about one test each year like when we were kids) are just out of touch with education these days and are speaking without any direct knowledge. Who here actually works in education? Remember I am not a teacher and the tests have nothing to do with my evaluations so this isn’t a personal agenda. I’m just the tech guy, but seeing it first hand you really understand how insane its gotten with the number of tests these kids are subjected to these days, and what percentage of the entire school year is taken up with testing. This is not one 2 day test we are talking about, and if that’s what you think the issue is about then you probably need to do a little research so you have a better understanding of the issue, and then you may have an easier time understanding why some parents are making the choices that they are. Equating this with anti-vaxxers or anti-science is ridiculous and betrays a lack of understanding of the situation I’m afraid.
I think standardized testing is stupid. I never thought that until I went to a college (and graduated) that had no final exams. Often we had to write papers or in our math classes, it was a group project.
I was stunned at how much more I learned and how much more I was engaged in learning. Since I didn’t have to worry about a final exam, I didn’t concentrated only on the topics that were expected to be on the exam. I could learn all about my preferred topic and only have to worry that I was learning the right thing.
I definitely don’t think they should have tests every month like Airbeck says.
The problem is that the teachers will focus very heavily on teaching those specific set of concepts on the test. The teacher will be focused on getting the students to be able to answer the specific questions on the test rather than actually having an understanding of the Catholic Church’s influence on Europe. It’s like just focusing on just the names and dates of history rather than actually understanding the people’s motivations. The students memorize the information which is on the test as opposed to understanding it to synthesize the answer.
It’s not so much the test that’s the problem. It’s that so much is riding on the results of the test. With “No Child Left Behind”, the federal funds a school gets are tied to the standardized test results. If a school’s numbers are low, they are heavily pressured to raise them. If the administrators can’t, then they are replaced with other people or the school may even be closed. With this much pressure, you end up with students who are good at knowing which multiple choice answer to pick rather than students who are good at thinking.
There have been plenty of loopholes to prevent consequences of poor test results.
*"One glaring problem was that the unrealistic 100% proficiency goal spurred a race to the bottom. Many states dumbed down the proficiency standard on the annual state tests the law required.
Even with dumbed-down standards, by 2009, nearly 13% of the nation’s 100,000 schools were failing to improve adequately, in part because the definition of failure was so broad. Adding to the absurdity, even the worst schools could duck the harshest consequences of NCLB by going through the motions of change — filling out forms, following procedures, drafting plans — or later by seeking waivers. Sensible remedies, such as offering students transfers to a better school or free tutoring, were set up poorly and monitored ineptly."*
There are plenty of enemies of proficiency testing. Teacher unions hate the idea of their members being judged, even in part, on how their students do (and teachers delude themselves into believing that they’re doing a bang-up job, even when students can’t master a basic skill set). Parents just know their kids are real smart, even when testing shows otherwise. Accepting the less-than-wonderful outcomes might mean investing more time and effort in their kids’ education. And what students enjoy tests?*
I’m of the opinion that if proficiency testing isn’t measuring the right things, then you improve the test. The bottom line is getting students to learn better, not satisfying every economic or political interest group out there.
*there was a plaintive letter to the editor in our local paper the other day from a high school student who griped about how much time the federally mandated proficiency tests ate up (he/she said it was about 900 minutes). That translates to a tiny fraction of total classroom time. When I was in high school, we had to get through the N.Y. State Regents exams in several subjects on top of our regular class finals, and that consumed at least as much time without causing undue suffering (true, complaints were common among the student body. I didn’t mind the Regents exams that much, because they typically were easier than our regular exams).
Once again, we are not talking about one test here. The problem is too many standardized tests, being given all year long. Have you even read the thread? You’d think someone with such strong feeling about an issue would do a tiny bit of research into the issue at least. Maybe you’d learn something and actually start to understand why parents are deciding to opt out rather than just throw teachers under the bus based on a complete misunderstanding of the issue.
Here’s a hint. Things are different now than when you were in High School. Start there.
OK, I’m going to push back a little on this. For one, the Facebook campaigns that prompted this thread involve kids in elementary school. If your experience is with high school students taking a lot of tests, that doesn’t explain why parents of 5th graders are keeping their kids home on test day.
I’ve searched to see how many standardized tests your average elementary school kid is subjected to in my own state of Ohio, and nearest I can tell its not very many. My oldest is in 2nd grade and has taken standardized tests for gifted placement, but to the best of my knowledge has not had to take any state required tests yet. That starts next year, when she’ll have to take a total of 3 – the OAA reading test twice (fall and spring), and the OAA math test once (spring). Subsequent years will only be 2 tests (math and reading in spring).
Again, if my peers are opting their kids out of these tests, it has to be for some reason other than that 2 tests a year is overwhelming.
Now I’ll admit that annual testing is new to me. I remember testing every other year at most – 3rd, 5th, and 8th grades, and then junior and senior year for the “you must pass this to graduate” test. (I’m not including college entrance exams) You’ve rattled off a list of tests and how many test days your school allocates every year, which is clearly more than I ever had to deal with, but I’m interested in numbers for actual students – how many actual days does your average freshman spend taking tests? Not test prep, actually taking the test. Sophomores? Etc?
If schools are using multiple weeks of class time for test prep, that’s a problem, yes. I’d say it’s a problem with the school, since my own school didn’t do that and we seemed to pass the tests just fine, but it may very well be a fundamental flaw in the idea of testing. But then it seems strange to let your 10 year old suffer through 10 days of test prep and then keep her home on the day of the actual test, right?
There’s a difference between objecting to the idea of excessive testing and actually keeping your kid home on test day. WhyNot seems to be the only opt-outer to actually respond, and she made her motivation abundantly clear, which I appreciate.
This assumes you can understand a subject without knowing alot of specifics about it. Students get to know which answer to pick by learning about the subject and then thinking about the answer. If a school’s numbers are low they should be under heavy pressure to raise them, the whole purpose of school is to educate the children. If the schools are failing in that purpose there need to be changes. What is the alternative, shrugging our shoulders while generations of students get shortchanged and condemned to ignorance?
You don’t think students should be tested as often as once a month? When I was in school we had weekly quizzes.
And “the students haven’t learned anything in the last month” sounds like something someone would want to know.
Regards,
Shodan
I think the teachers should be quizzing often, sure, as part of their assessment and evaluation procedures. I don’t think we need multiple days long standardized testing - the scores of which the teachers don’t see until months later, if ever, for this purpose.
We’re doing our end-of-year PARCC testing next week, too. I’m leaving it up to my daughter whether she opts-out this time or not. She was pretty bored sitting around doing nothing last time, so she may want to, and I won’t stop her. But if she wants me to opt her out, that’s fine with me. She’s a straight A student. She’s reading and doing math three grade levels ahead of herself. I have no concerns about her academic skills or achievement. The only time the testing will begin to benefit *her *is in 7th grade, when the results of her own tests will be used to determine her eligibility for selective enrollment high schools. If she wants to take some before then to practice and get familiar with the test, that’s fine with me.
If anything, her score will obscure the issues at hand for the whole school. As an outlier, she’s going to be the one in college courses that “ruins the curve” for the whole class.
And that’s the thing…she’s not a stellar student because her teacher is that much more competent than any other teacher. She’s a stellar student because of how her brain is wired (and maybe the enrichment she gets at home). That’s why I don’t think you can test teachers by testing students. There are too many home and environmental variables that aren’t tracked. There’s nothing on this test to allow statisticians to control for “my mom is a science geek and reading nerd and we’ve been doing homeschooling on the side for fun.” There’s nothing to control for, “Sure, we’ve got money, but no one ever bought the baby books to build early reading skills and a love of books,” or “I babysit my little brother every night so there’s no time for homework practice,” or “My dad thinks only boys can be good at math, so I must be bad at math.”
We’re talking about standardized testing mandated from the state/feds, not in class quizzes, tests and exams given by the teachers. I almost can’t believe that this was a serious reply. Please do try to keep up with the actual subject being discussed.
We’re talking benchmark exams. Benchmarks compare performance at the beginning of the year (or middle) and the end. This is not the same as tests that your teacher gives you during class time. What is the point of yearly benchmark tests being given weeks apart? If you are thinking about pop quizzes you got back in the 5th grade then you haven’t a clue what is actually being discussed in this thread.
I don’t because often the largest factor of how well a student does on a test is not the quality of the teacher.
My problem is that usually the standardized tests are multiple choice. Maybe for an English part, you might get to write an essay. (I don’t know what kind of tests are currently given in high schools and below, but I assume that this is still true.)
Many good questions can not be answered well by multiple choice questions.
If I want to see if someone can solve an equation, the worst thing in the world is to give him five possible answers, since instead of solving the equation, he can simply check each one to see if they work. That doesn’t test the skill of “solving an equation” at all!
If I want to see if someone can sketch the graph of an equation, a multiple choice question is terrible. A student can know just one or two things about the graph, eliminate the possibilities that don’t meet those qualities, and then just guess the remaining graph, without having any idea how you would graph the entire thing.
And there are so many problems where partial credit would be reasonable to give, but can’t (or typically isn’t) given on multiple choice questions. Like, if you solve an equation, think the answers are 1 and 3 but forgot that you have to check your answer to discover that 1 is not really a solution, but 3 still is… on a multiple choice test, you are wrong (just as wrong as someone who has no idea how to even begin the problem), whereas I would give such a student partial credit.
And the problem with “teaching to” such a test, is that often the soul of the material is gone. If you don’t tell students how to sketch a graph but instead tell them how to eliminate possibilities on a multiple choice test that involve sketching the graph, then your teaching has missed the point entirely. The point of such a question on a test would be to test if a student can sketch a graph, but that’s not what it really tests. It might show that a student understands x-intercept and y-intercepts, but maybe they know nothing else. So, they’re in a sense getting credit for learning something that they didn’t learn, and they didn’t learn the skill that was the whole point of the class. How does that benefit anyone (apart from teachers who get to keep their jobs)?
In the NYC public school system test scores largely determine which middle and high schools kids can get into. So starting in 3rd and 4th grade there’s SAT level stress going on so kids can make the hard test score cut-offs needed to even bother applying to the top schools. There’s a whole little test prep and tutoring industry around it. The serious kids typically have serious parents, so no making Christmas tree patterns!
First let me tell you what I think is wrong with the tests and then I’ll tell you why one of my kids is opted out and one isn’t.
The problem with the test is that they are a one-size-fits-all approach to education. There is very little in life, especially with children that is one-size-fits-all.
The law requires us to adapt tests/evaluations for special education students, but then allows for no adaptions (other than extended time) for these same children. The same state makes both of these rules. These kids are in no way prepared to take these tests.
English language learners, even if they have only been in this country for one day, must take these exams.
Teachers are responsible for the test scores of the kids in their classes, even if they just moved to the district.
Kids with home-life problems are not going to do well on these tests.
The list goes on. This is just what I thought of in 5 minutes. I’m sure I could come up with more given the time.
Now, why does my daughter take these test, but my son does not? Because they are very different individuals. My daughter will try her very best and get an average score. My son always scores in the top 5%. This year, he had a panic attack the night before the test. He also had a panic attack during testing. These tests just don’t work for him. I wasn’t even the one to opt him out (although I will be in the future). My son’s school called the state and got him an exemption (Bless those people).
Two questions, then -
[ul][li]If two standardized tests given one month apart indicate that the students haven’t learned anything in the intervening month, is this information that someone should want to know?[/li][li]One of the repeated complaints is that teaches teach to the test instead of teaching something else, which apparently can’t be measured by standardized tests but is more valuable than teaching to the test. If teachers are teaching to the test, but the students don’t learn what is being taught, is this information that someone would want to know?[/ul]Someone other than teacher’s union representatives, I mean.[/li]
Regards,
Shodan
This explains a lot.
Currently schools use a grading curve Which means a failing class will produce an “A” student. The grades are meaningless.
Teachers are there to teach children. The outcome is the knowledge the children gain. That’s the metric.
When I went to school a teacher was expected to be able to teach all the subjects. Math/Science teachers would correct the grammar of kids in their class. English teachers would slip in a bit of history or science. I’ve seen teachers from my city (on the news) complaining about their wages and they were butchering the English language. Seriously? How in the hell did they qualify in the first place?
We live in a global market. Gone are the days of plentiful factory jobs. We have to compete with billions of people from other countries.
Never seen that. I have seen grades inflated for “effort” and social promotion. I’m agin’ 'em. But that’s another thread.
Yes, absolutely. The outcome is the knowledge the children gain. And, arguably, how they can apply that knowledge in both higher education and real life. Not on a standardized test.